The easiest way to invest is to sign up at Coinbase.com. If you sign up with a referral code, you get $10 when you purchase $100 in bitcoin or ether. I’ve linked my mom’s referral code here if anyone is interested. Straight to her retirement fund! (In the interest of having zero monetary gain from my fiduciary advice, however, just email me if you use this link and buy over $100 of bitcoin, and I’ll send you the whole $10 my mom receives on her end as a referrer — so you get $20 for investing $100. Not bad!)
NEW YORK, Dec. 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Grayscale Investments, LLC, in its role as agent (the "Agent") of the shareholders of record (the "Record Date Shareholders") of the Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCQX: GBTC) (the "Trust") as of November 6, 2017, announced that it has today completed the liquidation of approximately 172,501 Bitcoin Cash tokens distributed to it as Agent on November 6, 2017.
This gave birth to a whole new industry of business, companies like Verisign were created to ensure sites asking for your credit card details were in fact who they said they were by creating digital certificates that employed encryption to online shoppers. Eventually, most fraudsters were stomped out. The same thing is happening in the blockchain space right now and with it, a whole new industry is taking shape to change blockchain for the better.
That said, it’s extremely important to keep in mind that one doesn’t get infinite opportunities to keep playing this bet out over and over again. There is only one bitcoin in the world, and we only have one opportunity to play out this exact bet. Given this fact, it’s important to realize that if this were somehow to actually be a perfectly EV neutral bet, with a possibility of a 150X upside and a 0.66% chance of realizing that upside, it would still mean that we have a 99.33% chance of losing all our money that we place on this bet. It would be extremely foolish, therefore, to invest all our money into such a wildly speculative investment, even if it is technically EV neutral or even slightly EV positive. What might make sense, is to set aside a responsibly proportionate amount of money specifically earmarked for such wildly speculative investments as a part of a holistic investment portfolio, that one is fully willing and able to lose without significant impact to one’s well-being or quality of life, and to invest that amount of money in a +EV bet like this.

And finally, let's not forget that crypto trading is primarily comprised of short-minded retail investors. These often emotional investors don't have the wherewithal to stick around for the long term, meaning any news event could send them running for the hills. We've witnessed more than one scare with bitcoin and other large digital currencies that sent the entire crypto market tumbling, with basically no exceptions.

Bitcoin fundamentally changes this equation. Unlike even gold, bitcoin is nigh impossible, when stored correctly, for anyone to confiscate without consent. The addresses at which bitcoin values are stored are protected by ‘private keys’, which can be thought of as a password or a key to a lockbox. Without this private key, it is generally impossible to steal the bitcoins held at the public address to which the private key corresponds. So long as you keep this private key secure, your bitcoins are secure.

Generally speaking, diversification -- the ability for investors to buy stocks in different industries and sectors, or based on market cap, growth rate, or dividend yield -- has allowed investors the opportunity to maximize their long-term capital appreciation potential. If one sector is doing poorly, a diversified portfolio might be hedged with another industry or sector that's thriving. Plus, with the ability to load a diversified portfolio with dividend-paying stocks, complete with reinvestment, it's often easy to build wealth over time. All it really takes is patience, discipline, and the resolve to buy stocks at regular intervals over time, regardless of how "high" or "low" the market is trading.

The most common mistake people seem to make is investing solely based on the price alone and its short term historical trajectory, and nothing else. The second mistake is investing in assets that they don’t actually understand or believe in long term, are not planning to hold for at least 5 years, and will be tempted to sell if the price begins to fall in the short term. The third mistake is believing that they’ve already missed the boat on the most established and successful cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin and ethereum, and that consequently they should invest in much less established, much more speculative ‘altcoins’ to achieve truly outsized gains, for no truly good reason besides the fact that the price/market cap for the altcoin is a lot lower than bitcoin’s, and seems like it has more room to grow. The fourth mistake is day trading, and trying to capitalize on short term market movements. I’ll address each of these in turn, and why I believe them to be mistakes.
Price history: this is relevant if I have made the decision that I want to invest. If it is an established asset I will be looking at its long-term price history, does it move in cycles (see Siacoin as an example), if so, which cycle is it in right now or does it have stable growth (see DASH)? If growth is stable I am less sensitive to the current price as I believe in long-term growth, I will only avoid if it is in a spike and will wait for the price to settle. If it moves in a cycle, unless it is early in a cycle, I will wait until the end of the current cycle before investing.
A select few cryptocurrencies out of the thousands will survive and be adopted mainstream just as there are a select few currencies that are used by the majority of the world. However, the main crypto currencies won’t be determined by economic power but by the unique value and benefits that they provide. e.g. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency however, it is built on a platform that allows developers to create smart contracts and decentralised apps on the blockchain. This unique and useful feature of Ethereum gives it a strong chance of surviving in the long run.
Just like any other currency, you have to have a place to store your Bitcoin, or more accurately, store the private keys you can use to access your Bitcoin. These aren’t the type of wallets you buy at Target, though. The software comes in many different forms, most of which can be downloaded on your smartphone, tablet, or computer desktop. Here are the different types of wallets:
While it is enticing to attribute the underwhelming trading volumes to the decline in the underlying assets’ valuation, some observers point out that the two are actually tied in a kind of an egg-and-chicken cycle, mutually influencing each other. As early as in January, when a multitude of versions explaining the crash of Bitcoin price began to emerge in media space, one of the less-visible yet sound considerations was that futures trading had opened the crypto markets to bear investors.
Don’t buy in at market prices, though. Even though this is a convenient option, it usually knocks a few percentages off your value. I always set my buy order 3% below the current market price on exchanges. The market price is never the best price you can get at that moment on exchanges such as Binance, Bittrex, Kucoin and Poloniex. It might take a day before your order is filled if you set the limit price 3% below the market price, but in my experience, my orders have always been filled.
While Goldman Sachs’ skeptical stance on crypto “remains intact,” the investment bank’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein has suggested that the adoption of crypto like Bitcoin could happen in a similar way as that of paper money, which replaced gold and silver coins. In an interview in June, Blankfein stated that it is “too arrogant” to argue that crypto cannot be adopted on a large scale only because it is “uncomfortable” or “unfamiliar.”
With things like brain wallets possible, this means that even in the worst case scenario, you can literally store your bitcoins in your brain and nowhere else, and thereby easily prevent their confiscation. Just yet another fundamental innovation in the evolution of currency that bitcoin has made possible — its fully intangible nature is actually an asset.
The simplest example is flipping a coin. This will yield heads 50% of the time, and tails 50% of the time. Expected value of betting on the coin yielding heads, hence, is 0. This is because in any one given flip, the coin has exactly a 50% chance of coming up heads. Hence, if you bet $100 on the coin coming up heads an infinite number of times, your expected gain, or value, from such an action, is to be $0.
Once you have done all your research and established your portfolio balances, it’s time to add some more elements to your strategy. These elements ensure consistency and promote discipline, something that is of utmost importance for any strategy. Consistent discipline removes your emotions from the strategy and creates the biggest upside potential. Nothing goes up forever.

Digression aside, that sums up most of the thoughts I have about the primary things to be cautious about when it comes to bitcoin investment. There are a few more practical matters to be extremely cautious about (namely, how you store your cryptocurrency), but I’ll address those in the next part, which will be an actual how-to guide showing actually actionable steps for those interested in getting into bitcoin investment.

TIP: If the RSI is really high (like 70+ on all time frames), then the asset is considered “overbought” and the rally probably only has so much longer to go before a dip. If the RSI is really low, like 30 or less on all time frames, we are “oversold” by that indicator. There is no actual limit to how high or low the RSI can go, but you can see in the chart above (which shows the RSI on daily candles) that the oversold and overbought states are not the norm and are generally not sustained for long. Simple indicators like this can help you time your trades when timing your trades. Just remember, indicators help you analyze historic data, they can’t predict the future!

If you feel comfortable with Coinbase and Coinbase Pro, you’re are probably ready to move on to trading in a wider variety of cryptocurrencies. If you’re looking to trade in anything beyond Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, or Ether, like Stellar, Ripple, Cardano, NEO, Dash or TRON (for example), you’ll need to add another crypto trading platform to your rounds. A site like Bittrex, Binance, Bitfinex, or Poloniex.
We have a long and successful history of investing across a wide range of industries and transactions, including leveraged buyouts and recapitalizations, corporate divestitures spin-offs and roll-outs. Active local development policy of Bitcoin Investment Inc is aimed at providing the clients in any part on the world’s map with the service of definite high quality to get high investment income. We provide significant value over the life of our investments through active involvement. We provide assistance to our management teams in many areas including strategic planning, finance, marketing, recruiting, analyzing and closing acquisitions or divestitures, developing treasury strategies and assessing financial markets.
Understand why the dip happened. Did the dip occur due to some rumor that will likely have a temporary impact? Was the crypto overbought and now it needs some time to cool off? Did it just fail an all time high twice and now we are likely headed for a longer term correction? If you have this answer, then you can better gauge if you should be buying the dip. To this point, also keep an eye on the news. Bad news can cause a correction to deepen, good news could result in a quick turnaround (making it hard to get buy orders in if you are waiting for signs of recovery before buying).
A cryptocurrency that aspires to become part of the mainstream financial system may have to satisfy widely divergent criteria. It would need to be mathematically complex (to avoid fraud and hacker attacks) but easy for consumers to understand; decentralized but with adequate consumer safeguards and protection; and preserve user anonymity without being a conduit for tax evasion, money laundering and other nefarious activities. Since these are formidable criteria to satisfy, is it possible that the most popular cryptocurrency in a few years’ time could have attributes that fall in between heavily-regulated fiat currencies and today’s cryptocurrencies? While that possibility looks remote, there is little doubt that as the leading cryptocurrency at present, Bitcoin’s success (or lack thereof) in dealing with the challenges it faces may determine the fortunes of other cryptocurrencies in the years ahead.
I’m a nomad from The States, currently residing in Indonesia. Can you suggest the best global service for wallets/exchanges? In The States it’s Coinbase but its supported countries are extremely limited for my needs limited. I need something I can access in basically any country without issue. I know there are a options out there, but I wanted to get you opinion of how other travelers have gotten past this.

Technology development: this is a key aspect in cryptocurrency. If the technology behind a cryptocurrency is not fit for purpose, then it is likely that in the long-term, the cryptocurrency will fail. An example of a positive technological development is Ethereum’s recent Byzantium hard fork. This hard fork allowed for more transactions to be processed on the Ethereum blockchain. This positive technological development increases the likelihood of Ethereum being widely adopted, and so once again makes it a viable candidate for our portfolio.

This is the most popular method of investing in Bitcoins. The best time to buy is when the currency value is low or it is expected to increase. Then we resell the coins when we believe that the time has come. Our investment does not have to be short-term, we can resell our Bitcoins after a few or several years. The advantage of this type of investment is that we are the owners of the purchased Bitcoins and we can use them as a payment method. The disadvantage is that in the case of a loss of the value of coins, we have to simply wait for their value to increase again.
I don’t chase the market. I have, and I have been burned. FOMO is not part of my strategy and I covered this in my blog. When a coin is making a parabolic move, and you chase it you can easily be caught as it drops back. If something goes up 20x in a short space of time, it has to do another 20x from the original position for you to achieve a 2x. There are always other trades out there.
The first part will speak to a broad explanation of what bitcoin and cryptocurrency at large are. The second will discuss my personal investment philosophy as it pertains to crypto. The third will show you step by step how to actually begin investing in crypto, if you so choose. Each section will be clearly delineated, so feel free to skip parts if they’re already familiar to you.
Ripple is an open-source digital payment network, and it’s already being used by some of the world’s largest banks – such as the bank of Tokyo and Santandar. XRP has shown significant potential recently and has been turning a lot of heads. Ripple aims to become the go-to tool for banks on a global scale, while still giving an exciting investment opportunity to crypto advocates and solo investors. Ripple has many haters and I’ve been burned by it myself in the past – I sold 30,000 XRP at 20 cents… painful. Still, I did buy them at 3 cents a pop, so it could have been worse. I hold 10,000 XRP today and will hold until 2022.
You’ll find that different exchanges cater to different markets. Today, most countries have at least one cryptocurrency exchange specializing in their own currency. There are exchanges that can accept New Zealand Dollars in exchange for bitcoin, for example. Other exchanges are known for certain pairs. Bithumb, for example, has particularly strong liquidity in the ETH/KRW (South Korean Won) pair at the moment (and it’s easily the most popular cryptocurrency exchange in Korea).

The moment you look at the amount of support Tron has been receiving lately, you immediately realize it’s not just yet another blockchain-based platform. Tron’s technology aims to deploy world’s largest FREE content entertainment system. The platform allows anyone to store and own data, and to freely publish their content. Its app “Peiwo” already gathers 10 million enthusiasts and is on the road to become the world’s first TRON-compatible entertainment app. This technology revolves around the following ideology: All contributions on the network should be of equal quantitative value, the Internet should be decentralized, and data creators should have the absolute ownership of the data. It’s important to realise though that Tron has been pushed like hell by an ambitious marketing department… I have not yet decided if this is a cryptocurrency which will survive but, for a one year hold, it seems a safe bet.

I use to like Tether, it was a way to move money into fiat currency without actually buying the fiat itself. However, today it seems to be yet another form of manipulation. Tether makes up roughly 1% of the cryptocurrency market, yet somehow it is responsible for over half of the bitcoin trading volume each day. Something does not seem right with that.
You’ll find that different exchanges cater to different markets. Today, most countries have at least one cryptocurrency exchange specializing in their own currency. There are exchanges that can accept New Zealand Dollars in exchange for bitcoin, for example. Other exchanges are known for certain pairs. Bithumb, for example, has particularly strong liquidity in the ETH/KRW (South Korean Won) pair at the moment (and it’s easily the most popular cryptocurrency exchange in Korea).
I have been a crypto skeptic and don't really buy the "new asset class" argument. But this is not going to develop in a linear fashion. It is going to explode in terms of use when certain enabling conditions are met. Too important to write it off. Even if these discussions don't have much that is revelatory to the well informed on the subject, they still provide clues as to directions to follow for derivative trades that are a function of the disruption ahead.
You should look for projects that have good long-term fundamentals. Assessing a project based on its vision, the problems it is trying to solve and the quality of its developing team is vital in understanding whether the project has great prospects. Good projects will tend to achieve their objectives and deliverables, which will, in turn, be reflected in an appreciation of their token’s price over the long-term. (See more: Coins, Tokens & Altcoins: What’s the Difference?)
Last month, Chainalysis published a study revealing that BTC investors and speculators held their positions over the summer, while markets seem to have become more stable overall. The monetary aggregates reportedly were “extremely steady” during the summer, showing that the amount of BTC held for speculation was stable from May to August at around 22 percent of available BTC. The amount of BTC held for investment also showed stability during the same period at around 30 percent.
Historically speaking, the stock market has been the greatest creator of wealth. Sure, it hits its rough patches from time to time, with 20 bear markets in the S&P 500 occurring over the last 90 years, according to data from Yardeni Research. But at the end of the day, stocks have returned an average of 7% annually, inclusive of dividend reinvestment, and when adjusted for inflation. Compared to bonds, commodities, CDs, and other assets, the stock market has trounced them all over the long run.
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Paypal was one of the first large-scale financial companies to come out in support of Bitcoin, but it has quickly become harder to find exchanges that allow customers to purchase through Paypal. Cryptocurrency purchases are at a high risk for chargebacks, which has caused some exchanges to ban the usage of Paypal. However, for small transactions or more anonymous buying, Paypal might be a good option for you.
Most people are at least somewhat familiar with Bitcoin even if they do not accurately understand how it works. However, once they begin to get involved with cryptocurrency, they may be surprised to learn that there are hundreds of cryptocurrencies (a.k.a altcoins) out there besides Bitcoin (CoinMarketCap listed more than 2000 altcoins at the time this guide was written).
Pointing to Grayscale Investments, the largest asset manager in the crypto sphere and part of DCG, Silbert showcased that mainstream funds are starting to put some money to work in the crypto space. Earlier on Wednesday, Grayscale announced it had raised $250 million to date, and 56% of that came from institutional investors. A year or two ago, that was almost non-existent.
Okay — so that’s about it for investing in the dominant cryptocurrencies available today. If you want to invest in other more speculative altcoins, you’ll have to create your own wallets for them, and investigate the best and most secure solution for doing so yourself. This should generally be a good exercise in any case to determine if you meet the bare minimum requirements for responsible investment in a given altcoin.

Steindorff: QTUM is an emerging smart-contract platform with a strong team and promising future. You can think of QTUM as a bitcoin/ethereum hybrid in the sense that the platform enables smart contracts to be built atop bitcoin’s UTXO blockchain. This is an important technological achievement as it enables mobile and IoT compatibility for smart contract backed decentralized applications, a feature not currently available with Ethereum. Mobile compatibility will accelerate the proliferation of smart-contract adoption among businesses while simultaneously broadening its use case as a digital currency via mobile friendly QTUM wallets. Additionally, QTUM has shifted away from the Proof of Work consensus model (Bitcoin/Ethereum) and instead leverages the Proof of Stake model which rewards QTUM token owners for confirming transactions via “staking” instead of “mining.” Without getting into too many details this method is both more environmentally friendly and less prohibitive for individuals to participate than the Proof of Work method. Since launching in early 2017 QTUM has garnered a massive community throughout the Asia-Pacific and the United States. We believe the QTUM team is unrivalled in Asia and their protocol stack has the potential to become the dominant Smart Contract platform of Asia.

In addition, investing in Bitcoin Investment Trust allows investors to keep their holdings in both bitcoin and stocks together in one brokerage account. If you buy bitcoin directly, you typically have to use cryptocurrency exchanges that don't offer regular stock trading, forcing you to have two accounts and deal with the challenges involved in moving money between them.
Most traders who do not have a plan for trading blindly will be eliminated in the near future. As a transaction, bitcoin trading is no different from other underlying objects, such as stock futures. An effective trading strategy is essential in order to make a steady profit in this market. Stop the loss of profits, homeopathy, light warehouse is the key. To strictly implement these trading plan, use the program trading is very effective, program trading my first contact with bitcoin is BotVS quantification in the know the platform to see the column introduced bitcoin hedging strategy is inspired by. Later, I tried to write some trading strategies and use them on firm exchanges. Accumulated a lot of bitcoin trading experience. I’m still bullish on bitcoin, which was a great invention in the twenty-first Century.
That said, it’s extremely important to keep in mind that one doesn’t get infinite opportunities to keep playing this bet out over and over again. There is only one bitcoin in the world, and we only have one opportunity to play out this exact bet. Given this fact, it’s important to realize that if this were somehow to actually be a perfectly EV neutral bet, with a possibility of a 150X upside and a 0.66% chance of realizing that upside, it would still mean that we have a 99.33% chance of losing all our money that we place on this bet. It would be extremely foolish, therefore, to invest all our money into such a wildly speculative investment, even if it is technically EV neutral or even slightly EV positive. What might make sense, is to set aside a responsibly proportionate amount of money specifically earmarked for such wildly speculative investments as a part of a holistic investment portfolio, that one is fully willing and able to lose without significant impact to one’s well-being or quality of life, and to invest that amount of money in a +EV bet like this.

A futures contract commits its owner to buy or sell an underlying commodity, currency or market index at a set price on a given date weeks or months in the future. In most cases the trader never takes possession of the corn, crude oil or bitcoin covered by the contract. Instead, gains or losses are reflected in the changing price of the contracts themselves as the underlying asset rises or falls.